Who is Gary Johnson? The undercover cop who inspired Glen Powell’s Hit Man character

Glen Powell’s latest project Hitmanwhich follows the life of undercover cop Gary Johnson, shot to the top of Netflix’s movie charts just days after its release.

Directed by School of rockit’s Richard Linklater, Hitman tells the story of Gary Johnson (Powell), a philosophy professor who begins working for the police while posing as a hired assassin to help with undercover operations.

The film explores the “somewhat true story” of the life of an undercover police officer who unexpectedly discovers that he can pose as a reliable hitman to bring down those who call on his “services.” » to kill their enemies.

Thanks to The hitman shocking plot, it didn’t take long for viewers to wonder how faithful the film had been to Gary Johnson’s incredible life story and whether Powell’s character was a real person.

*Some spoilers ahead*

In the film, Johnson, a professor of psychology and philosophy at the University of New Orleans, is portrayed as a nerdy bird-watching enthusiast with an “unforgettable face,” which allows him to become the killer pledges that he pretends to be.

The real Johnsonson actually taught human sexuality and psychology classes in Texas and worked alongside local law enforcement in Houston. But – just like in the film – Johnson would encounter people soliciting hit men while wearing a microphone and extract confessions from them.

Hitman is based on a 2001 Texas Monthly article by journalist Skip Hollandsworth. In the article, Hollandsworth explains how Johnson was considered “the Laurence Olivier of the field” as his investigations led to 60 arrests of Houston residents who attempted to hire him as an assassin.

While working, Johnson went by aliases such as Mike Caine, Jody Eagle, and Chris Buck and was considered by his clients to be “Houston’s greatest professional hit man.” “He’s the perfect chameleon,” Houston attorney Michael Hinton told Hollandsworth. “He never gets angry and he never says bad things. … He deceives them every time.”

In Hitman, Johnson is employed by a woman named Maddy Masters (Adria Arjona) who hires him to kill her abusive husband, Ray (Evan Holtzman). Rather than solicit a confession from Masters, Johnson tells him to use the money intended to kill Ray to leave him and start a new life. But Johnson and Masters end up sleeping together, starting a relationship, and Master’s ex later emerges for revenge.

In reality, there is no evidence that Johnson ever dated any stricken clients. The professor has been married and divorced three times and is described by his second wife, Sunny, as a “loner”.

She said Texas Monthly: He comes to parties and has a good time, and he’s always friendly, but he likes to be alone, quiet. It’s still amazing to me that he can take on this other personality that makes people think he’s a vicious killer.

Johnson told Hollandsworth: “Doing what you do, it’s hard to trust people…I think it would be fair to say that I don’t let a lot of people get too close.” »

Although he never slept with a client, Johnson met a woman who was a victim of abuse in real life and tried to dissuade her from employing him. “He learned that she was really a victim of abuse, regularly beaten by her boyfriend, too terrified to leave him because of her fear of what he might do if he found her,” Hollandsworth writes.

“Instead of setting up an operation to catch the woman and send her to prison, he decided to help her. He referred her to social service agencies and a therapist to ensure she got the appropriate help so she could leave her boyfriend and enter a women’s shelter.

In Hitman, two murders take place: Masters kills her ex-husband Ray after he comes to pick her up, and Johnson kills a police officer who discovers the crime and threatens to report the couple unless they give him a million dollars. Notably, in real life, Johnson never killed anyone.

The hitman The final title card describes Johnson as the “coolest guy imaginable” who loved animals, was a Vietnam War veteran, and a practicing Buddhist. The professor was born in 1947 and died before Hitman began filming in 2022. The cause of his death is unknown.